


A Droid on Ryloth

by PilotInTheStars



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Astromech Droids, Clone Wars, Gen, I have a lot of feelings about Hera and Chopper, Ryloth - Freeform, and if they could give Hera's mother a name, that would be great
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-05
Updated: 2017-11-23
Packaged: 2019-01-09 05:46:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12270111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PilotInTheStars/pseuds/PilotInTheStars
Summary: A Y-Wing crashed in front of the Syndulla home during the first year of the Clone Wars. But it wasn't until two years later that C1-10P was put back together by Hera Syndulla.Five short stories about Chopper's time on Ryloth.





	1. A Resurrection

**Author's Note:**

> I did some basic proofreading, but if there's any grammatical errors, please feel free to tell me. :)
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this first short story about Chopper's time on Ryloth. 
> 
> I have a lot of feelings about Hera and Chopper, and I've spent a lot of time thinking about their early friendship. These five stories are me trying to imagine what it was like for the two of them during those years of the Clone Wars and the Imperial occupation of Ryloth.

With a couple sparks, the droid came to life. Hera gave a little noise that was a mix between a squeal and a gasp. Hera hadn’t been expecting for the droid to work. This was the fourteenth time she had tried to turn the astromech on. She didn’t think the droid would turn on. But it did.

The droid pivoted, looking around at this new world he was in. He was slow, making small noises and low beeps until he finally seemed to be gazing at her. Or at least, Hera thought he was looking at her. He gave a small beep.

“Hello,” she told him. The droid looked around again, and made a sharp turn to face the crashed Y-Wing behind it. He beeped loudly, as if in shock, and spun back to Hera, as if expecting her to explain. 

“You’re on Ryloth. Your ship crashed two years ago.” The droid didn’t respond. “I-I just found you a month ago. I put you back together.” She didn’t think droids could express emotion, but apparently she just hadn’t seen it. There was a state of sadness around this droid. She leaned in forward and looked at the small call number on the base of its head. “C1-10P? Is that your name?”

C1-10P gave a beep that sounded like a “yes” in Hera’s head.

Hera scrambled to get up from her spot. She was taller than this droid by a lot. She liked it; she had always been the smallest before. The droid was staring at the Y-Wing again. 

“I’m sorry about what happened. I wish I could have stopped it.” The droid turned away from the crashed ship to face her. He still looked as if he expected for Hera to explain more. 

“The war is still there,” Hera stated, to which the droid didn’t respond. “And here, but it isn’t bad. The Republic is here, and we have more food than we used to. You were with the Republic, right?

The droid didn’t respond yet again. 

“Come on,” she said, and it finally looked up at her. “I want to show you to Mama and Papa. Can you come with me?”

The droid was already moving into the house. Hera walked beside him, as C1-10P kept rolling along, gazing around at the sights of the Syndulla household. They didn’t speak for a while. Hera wasn’t sure quite what to say to the droid. She had never quite had someone to listen to everything she said before. But her parents would certainly be impressed when they saw the droid that she put back together all by herself. 

Hera found her parents where she expected them to be. Her mother and father too often sat in the downstairs office reviewing whatever it was on their datapads, discussing Ryloth, as they always were. Sometimes Hera would come down to spend time with them, but they were always busy. But today, instead of at a desk, they were standing up and talking, pointing to an array of papers on a desk. 

Her mother turned around when she heard the door open. And she was obviously a little shocked. Hera wondered if she was impressed with her mechanics.

But her father asked the question first. “Where did that droid come from?”

“In the Y-Wing outside. He was in a million pieces,” Hera informed her parents. She jabbed a thumb into her chest. “I put him back together.”

“All by yourself, did you?” her mother asked, walking over to her daughter, and placing a hand on her shoulder. 

One of her older cousins walked by every once in a while to help her through some tricky bits, and there had been a lot of difficult parts in putting the droid back together, but Hera had done all the hard work herself. 

“His number is C1-10P.”

Her mother glanced back at Hera’s father, who had his arms crossed across his chest. He didn’t say anything, but nodded and sat down at his desk. 

“Come on,” her mother said. “I want to see where you pulled him from the Y-Wing.”

Hera and her mother left the office to walk outside, and C1-10P began to follow them out.

“Do you think Papa likes my droid?”

Her mother was as unresponsive as C1-10P had been. But she finally spoke. “He’s worried. I’m not sure he knows how to feel. I’m sure he’s worried about what the droid could possibly report back to its old master, if it still could.” She sighed, and looked down at Hera. 

“You seem to be growing up too fast, my darling.”


	2. A Name

At the beginning of C1-10P’s time on this planet, he tried to find a way back home. But there didn’t seem to be one. The pilot of his Y-Wing had been dead for years, and the Republic wouldn’t care about one sole astromech droid. 

So he followed the little girl who had found him and put him back together. She was constantly moving throughout the surrounding plains, playing with her toy ships or climbing the large rocks that were common on this planet. C1-10P was grateful for the girl who had taken the time to fix him. And he was rarely grateful for a lot of things. 

Hera could be commanding for a child. And he didn’t like to follow all the commands she gave him. He would sometimes go and hide and she would have to find him, but he might venture too far from the area she told him to hide in. If she tried to tell him to stay in one place, he’d often go in the other direction. C1-10P had often been considered to be a disobedient droid by the multitudes of pilots he had worked with, and they all got rid of him eventually. But Hera didn’t care how many rules he broke, or what he did. She didn’t get rid of him. He wasn’t used to that. 

Hera seemed to care about him, and frequently would check to make sure all of his circuits were still working, and that his mechanics weren’t stuck with the massive amount of sand that wafted everywhere on this planet. She told him everything she thought about during that time. He didn’t know what to do with all this information. Even the previous Republic pilots he worked with before wouldn’t tell him that much. For now, it’d be safe with him. 

The days blended into weeks, and the weeks into months. C1-10P forgot to keep track of time. 

One day he found Hera sitting on a rock, her head supported by her hands as she stared out onto the horizon. 

He asked her if she wanted to play a game. 

“I don’t want to.”

C1-10P flew up to the top of the rock, a trick that usually surprised Hera and made her laugh. She didn’t even notice today. 

“Mama and Papa told me about what’s happening.”

C1-10P didn’t know what was happening. So he asked.

“There isn’t a Republic anymore. Mama said there’s an Empire now.” She drew her legs up and buried her face in her hands, leaving her next statements muffled. “Papa and Orn Free Taa are arguing about what to do.”

She took a deep breath and wrapped her arms around her legs, resting her forehead on her knees. “I’m tired of fighting.”

C1-10P gave a beep that didn’t have any meaning. For once, he had nothing to say. They sat in silence for a while, listening to the wind of the Ryloth plains as it blew over the canyons. 

“I like you Chopper. Even if you break all the rules.”

He had never heard that out of a organic’s mouth before.

“I was thinking of a nickname for you.”

Why? he asked.

“C1-10P is long. I was thinking about Chopper. Can I call you that, Chop?”

He was fine with that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed the second chapter of "A Droid on Ryloth." I spent some time trying to figure out Chopper and Hera's early relationship and I hope I did it justice.
> 
> I do have the next three chapters planned out, and I'm debating on if I want to possibly include an epilogue to wrap up the piece a little bit more. If you have any thoughts, please feel free to tell me. :) However, I'm going to be busy this month, so I'm not sure when the next chapter will be posted. If I can make the time, Chapter 3 should be posted in the next two weeks, and the whole work should be finished by the end of November. (And the next chapters should be a little bit longer, hopefully).
> 
> I did proofread, but there could be typos. If you notice one, please tell me in the comments so I can fix it.


	3. A Loss

327 dead in Lessu, the capital of Ryloth. That was the number Chopper overheard one evening after Hera went to bed. 327 dead from the Imperial protocol to “terminate any who oppose occupation by the Galactic Empire.” According to the reports, the number of dead and enslaved grew. 

Chopper knew what death was. He had certainly seen enough of it in his time. If a Republic pilot didn’t replace him for his “lack of obedience,” the pilot always met their doom in a fiery explosion in the vacuum of space. 

Death for droids was when your circuits blew out, or a certain part that essential to work smoothly was no longer manufactured. Sometimes the Republic powered you off for good in favor of a new developed model. Death was death. 

Chopper had seen catastrophic amounts of death in the war. It didn’t faze him, and he slowly grew accustomed to it. 

Cham Syndulla’s anger towards the Empire only grew during the weeks after the Republic fell. And Hera was certainly her father’s daughter. Cham was bold and headstrong, and he passed those traits to his daughter – to her benefit or her detriment. 

Hera relished in her mother’s affections, and Hera’s mother truly loved her daughter with all her heart. 

One evening, when Hera was frustrated when she couldn’t figure out a kink in Chopper’s wiring, her mother sat down with her to help her. It took them a while, but together they figured it out. “I’m proud of you” was a phrase that Hera obviously loved hearing, because her face lit up when her mother told her that afterwards.

Hera’s mother shared a passion for a free Ryloth with her husband, though she was a bit mellow in her way to take action. But their passion was shared no less, and it couldn’t be more obvious that they did love each other, and with that, they loved their daughter too. 

And Hera was devastated when she died. 

Chopper watched from a distance as Cham knelt down, tears in his own eyes, as he told her what happened in the Free Ryloth Movement’s attack. She slipped out of his embrace and bolted from the room. 

Chopper watch as Cham sat down in a chair and buried his face in his hands. It was as if the life had been drained from him in that moment. Chopper left him to be. 

Hera was nowhere to be found for a half hour. She was a quiet crier, and could fit into small places well. Chopper found her in her room – in the closet built into the rock. He could hear her crying. He had seen her grow, but now she seemed so small, and fragile, and scared.

_Please come out._

Her crying stopped, but the door didn’t open. 

_Please come out._

Hera opened the door. She sat with her knees drawn up to her chest and with her face wet with tears. 

Chopper didn’t know what to say from there. And Hera didn’t speak. Chopper rarely gave a damn about other people. That was just him. He was a wartime droid; there wasn’t a need for compassion in the middle of a battle when the only focus was making sure your pilot didn’t die in a fiery explosion. 

But he saw this girl, and she had shown him nothing but kindness. And he could see the pain she was feeling. That wasn’t a pain that would just go away. 

So if she needed a caretaker, then damn well he’d be one. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry for not updating sooner. Life took me and threw me down, but I'm back to finish up this story!
> 
> The final penultimate chapter is planned out and will be written in the next couple of days, and hopefully the final chapter is also coming. 
> 
> Like always, if there are any typos, feel free to let me know. :)  
> Thank you to everyone for your support of this fic! <3


End file.
